The Susan Glaspell Writing Festival wrapped up last month, and the winning plays recently were performed as staged readings.
Susan Glaspell was born in Davenport and wrote novels and plays in the early 1900s such as the one-act play Trifles in 1916, the short story "A Jury of Her Peers" in 1917, and the full play Alison's House in 1930 for which she won the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In total, she wrote 50 short stories, nine novels, 15 plays, and one biography.
During the Great Depression, she worked in Chicago for the Works Progress Administration, where she was Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project. This led her to discover playwrights Eugene O'Neill, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Theodore Dreiser. She was not only a famous author in her own time, but she highly encouraged new playwrights and new works to take the stage.
The QC Theatre Workshop in Davenport developed this contest in Glaspell's name to give new playwrights a chance to workshop their plays and see their works performed. Several St. Ambrose students submitted works, and in the "Local Adult Category," we had a winner! SAU student, junior Willow Schuchmann and her comedy one-act The Earth Is Indeed Flat was staged at the QC Theatre Workshop February 1 and 2 along with winners of the other categories.
Schuchmann wrote the play for Dr. Corinne Johnson's Survey of Dramatic Literature class last semester. The department looks forward to more works and more hilarity from this bright new author.
Susan Glaspell Playwriting Festival
A staged reading is essentially a mixture of a script readthrough and performance. Normally, there is some blocking, but the actors are reading from the scripts. Another actor who is not reading a character will then read the stage directions in the script to explain what could not be built or prepared in time for the staged reading.
Other categories and winning plays:
National Award Winner: The Stand by Caity-Shae Violette
National Award Finalists: Life Still Is by Tony Pasqualini; Women of Williams County by Karly Thomas
Local Youth Category Winner: Royalty by Jazzelle Aliana
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